Waves roll into driftwood at Benson Beach

If you’ve read only a few of my articles before, you can probably tell that I’m a real history fan. If you’ve read more than a few of my articles over the last two years, you know I love anything I can learn about Cape Disappointment. I thirst for the perspective of time that researching history provides. Beyond William Clark’s description of Cape Disappointment from November of 1805, it can be a challenge to find any documentation of the cape previous to the establishment of the military reservation there.
Just lately, I came across an interesting book written by a Methodist missionary named Gustavus Hines. The book was published in 1850 under the title: “Oregon: Its History, Condition and Prospects: Containing a Description of the Geography, Climate and Productions, With Personal Adventures among the Indians, During a Residence of the Author on the Plains Bordering the Pacific, While Connected with The Oregon Mission: Embracing Extended Notes of A Voyage Around the World. The excerpt I’ve selected to share with you is from the fall of 1843 when Hines was planning on leaving the Columbia River. The storms had another idea.

“On leaving Fort George we were in hopes immediately to pass over the bar of the Columbia, but on arriving at Baker’s Bay the wind became adverse, and, with the prospect of a violent and tedious storm from the south and west, we came to anchor snug under Cape Disappointment, that we might be sheltered from the fury of winds and waves. Though at present it is a most dreary and barbarous looking region around Baker’s Bay, yet, as Cape Disappointment must always be the guide of the mariner into the mouth of the river, and as the bay is the only safe anchorage, and vessels are always more or less detained in passing in and out, this must eventually become a place of considerable maritime importance. This in the only entrepot of the country, and consequently all supplies must pass either way through this channel. This river is the thoroughfare on which must be conveyed everything that goes to and from the interior, and, judging from the rapidity with which the country is filling up, the time is not far distant when steamboats will be flying up and down this river, as they are now seen on the Hudson and Mississippi. Three place offer facilities for the establishment of the grand depot for the country, which must be located somewhere near the mouth of the river. These are the shore of Baker’s Bay, back of Cape Disappointment, the east side of Point Adams, and old Astoria. One of these places may doubtless be contemplated as the location of some future splendid commercial city, say the New York of the west.
While in Baker’s Bay we experience a very disagreeable detention of forty days, during which the storm from the south and west, continued to rage, with unceasing violence. Day after day Captain Humphries and myself would climb to the top of Cape Disappointment, an look off on the broad expanse of the Pacific, and contemplate the majesty of the ocean as she rolled her mountain billows, and dashed them successively against the base of the mighty rock on which we stood. The huge swell, rolling in from the south-west, would break with fearful grandeur the entire width of the channel across the bar of the Columbia, and the thick haze darkening the horizon corroborated the indications of the barometer, that the storm had not yet abated.

Occasionally, however, we were able to extend our walks along the shore north of the Cape, and view whatever of interest presented itself. Here is a cave extending into the rock one hundred and fifty feet, and containing the bones of animals, trunks of trees, and other substances, which the tide has there deposited. The country around presents an aspect wild beyond description.

On the morning of the 31st of January, the wind blew fair from the north-west, and having been detained already beyond all endurance, the Captain resolved to make an effort to get to sea, though from the top of the Cape the mountain swell could be seen breaking across the channel. Accordingly, we weighed anchor, and soon passed Cape Disappointment…”

Gustavus Hines’ descriptions of Cape Disappointment and the mouth of the Columbia River paint a pretty wild scene. He saw potential in the rawness. He envisioned a new New York, fortunately we just have a Coast Guard base and a state park.